


tell you i'm certain

by whitew0rms



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitew0rms/pseuds/whitew0rms
Summary: The third house is a bit more than Pat thought they could pay, but Brian's mother has offered to help pay in, and the mortgage is reasonable enough, and Brian, well, he's in love. It's a faint grey blue, perfect in its simplicity, 3 rooms, one for Brian, one for Pat, a room to set up to make videos. They can stream at home. There's a garden as well, and Brian's already talking about all the seeds he wants to buy, how he wants to take up most of the grass and replace it, grow vegetables and fruit.They buy the house.Or, Pat and Brian fall in love, and buy a house, not in that order.





	tell you i'm certain

**Author's Note:**

> title from Neat Little Domestic Life

Pat and Brian's relationship is an accident really. Sometimes Pat thinks about all the roads they didn't take, the job he almost took back home, the apartment he almost moved into, all choices he made that lead to this.

It happens like this; Brian's been at Polygon for about a year, and Pat for about two, and Lauren and Jonah are both in serious relationships, talking seriously about moving in with their partners, and Brian is alone in New York with nowhere to stay. Pat at this point, is sick of the city, sick of his apartment, sick of the savings account that's never going to be enough in New York, and mostly, just sick of being alone. He's got roomies sure, but he honestly kind of thought he'd be married by now, not this.

Of course, the solution to all of this is to get roaringly drunk and pass out in the same bed.

When Pat wakes up in the morning, he has an account on Zillow, several surprisingly well written emails sent to real estates in various commuter towns near NYC, and, most surprisingly of all, a marriage licence in his and Brian's name in his gmail inbox.

The marriage license loses its place as most surprising part of the morning when Pat's pillow snores, and rolls over, leaving him cold without his duvet. Brian has made himself the centre of a duvet burrito, with only his sock-covered feet, and one hand grasping Pat's arm outside of Pat's rather nice jersey duvet. 

Brian looks younger in sleep, but more tired than he seems awake, the dark circles are easier to take in when he's not running himself ragged with the boundless energy he seems to exude. Pat finds himself ruthlessly stomping down the urge to gently brush his fingers through Brian's hair, and instead decides to make Brian pancakes.

The pancakes will explain what happened last night and they won't judge Pat.

Brian wanders out of Pat's bed when he's just finishing the last of the stack of pancakes, sleep mussed and sweet in a too big shirt and his boxers, and Pat feels a warm rush of something in his chest.

"I'm making pancakes" he says, flipping the last pancake. 

"Oh, wow, uh, thank you, Pat! I'm so sorry I drunkenly fell asleep on you, I really didn't mean to, and also uh, do you have any tea?" Brian rambles when he's nervous but at this point Pat's good at tuning out what's unnecessary and just replying to what he needs to.

"I think there's tea in that cupboard, along with sugar," Pat turns off the burner, and points to one of the cupboards, before continuing "I've got a kettle, just next to the sink. Mugs in that cupboard," Pat points to another cupboard, this one next to the fridge. "I think my roommate left some soy milk in the fridge as well, if you need it."

Brian is already fetching mugs and teabags and sugar, but when Pat finishes putting the last pancake on his plate in the oven to keep warm, and finally looks at Brian properly, Brian smiles at Pat, softly, sleepily, leaning against Pat's counters and listening to the hum of the kettle. 

"D'you want any?" he finally asks, and Pat brandishes his coffee mug at him in simple reply. 

"Ah, that's what smells so good then" Brian says, taking an obnoxious sniff, and Pat laughs despite himself.

"You can have some if you want" Pat gestures to the cafetiere his sister gave him his last birthday and Brian laughs and shakes his head.

"I only like the smell really, it's too bitter for me" he says, as the kettle clicks off, and Brian busies himself with making tea. Pat watches as Brian carefully covers the tea bag with water before adding milk and three teaspoons of sugar, and stirs. It's kind of gross really, but Pat finds it endearing despite himself. He likes knowing the stupid little things, like how Brian takes his tea, and the sleepy way he smiles at Pat in the morning. Friendship makes Pat a sap, even more so when there are underlying feelings, that Pat doesn't need to address right now, or ever if he has his way.

Pat coughs to himself and focuses on getting out syrup, peanut butter, plates and forks and knives, and setting them down on the table, before grabbing the plate of pancakes and placing them in the middle of the table. Brian takes a seat and Pat sits across from him, and plates himself some pancakes, pausing to smear peanut butter on about half of them, and watching the peanut butter melt. Brian wrinkles his nose, but doesn't comment, just drowns his pancakes in syrup and starts eating.

They make their way through the pile of pancakes, and Brian thanks Pat for feeding him, more polite than he normally is, when he lies on Pat's couch and demands Pat cook for him. Waking up in Pat's bed has made him weirdly formal, weirdly nervous, and Pat wants nothing more than Brian to be comfortable and relaxed, for nothing to change between them, just to have this simple easy thing. He resolves himself to speak.

"So-" Pat starts, when Brian tries to speak at the same time. Pat pauses to let Brian talk.

"Did you mean what you said last night?" the words seem to trip out of him, and Pat chokes on his breath, nervously runs his hands through his hair, wishes he knows what he said.

"Sorry, what?" Pat says, smiling nervously at Brian.

"You said we should buy a house together, and just, live together in the suburbs. And maybe it's stupid, and we were drunk but, I think we should do it. We can get a mortgage together, it'd-" he stops runs his hand through his hair, a mirror to Pat. "It'd be nice."

Pat should say no, knows he has to say no, knows he can let himself play pretend with Brian.

"Let's do it." 

Pat chooses not to mention the marriage licence in his email, lets it expire, figures Brian doesn't really need to know.

The first house they visit, Brian frowns throughout, doesn't like the paint, doesn't like the garden, it's shallow things, but it's enough to make Pat cross it off the list. They're looking at commuter towns, a couple especially, all around 40 minutes away from the Polygon office, and it's stupid how much imagining the commute makes Pat smile. He wants to sit on the train with Brian, wants to smile at him as they sip coffee and tea in traffic mugs, wants to make him breakfast and kiss him on the cheek. Scratch that last part.

The second house is closer, Brian likes the floors, the kitchen, the open lighting, the way the sun lights up the room, but there's still something not quite right, something that makes him hold back, something not quite right.

The third house is a bit more than Pat thought they could pay, but Brian's mother has offered to help pay in, and the mortgage is reasonable enough, and Brian, well, he's in love. It's a faint grey blue, perfect in its simplicity, 3 rooms, one for Brian, one for Pat, a room to set up to make videos. They can stream at home. There's a garden as well, and Brian's already talking about all the seeds he wants to buy, how he wants to take up most of the grass and replace it, grow vegetables and fruit.

They buy the house.

They rent a truck to move all their stuff in, and Simone, Allegra Jenna, Laura and Jonah all come round, help unpack, laugh at how Brian lets Pat take the huge room with the walk in closet, even though Pat has barely any clothes, and it looks kind of sad and empty with just his clothes hanging in it. Allegra doesn't help, but she does laugh at him.

In the evening, after everyone's eaten pizza and drank beer, and gone home, and it's just Pat and Brian shoving pizza boxes and beer cans into the crash. When they're done cleaning, they collapse on Pat's ratty old couch, and stare at the ceiling. Pat thinks about turning on his TV, getting Netflix up on the Xbox. They should probably start sharing Netflix really. He turns to bring it up to Brian and finds Brian grinning at him.

"What?" Pat says.

"Nothing!" says Brian, grin still splitting his face. "Just," he stops for a moment. "We bought a house, Pat! We live here! In this house! Together! I'm so glad" Brian starts giggling, and Pat has never been able to not laugh with Brian.

Brian collapses onto Pat's shoulder, muffling his giggles in Pat's shirt and Pat can feel him vibrating against him, and it makes him laugh even harder, makes him want to keep Brian here, laughing with him, for as long as he can.

"Yeah" Pat says, smiling and looking down at Brian. "I'm glad we're here together."

They watch What We Do In The Shadows on Netflix, because Brian's never seen it, and Brian keeps leaning on Pat the whole night, and Pat gets to feel him giggle into his shoulder, and it feel better than anything has in years, and Pat feels so lucky.

He's less happy in the morning, when he has to wake up an hour earlier than usual to commute into work. He's grateful for his fancy coffee maker which can be set to have coffee available on a timer, so Pat wakes up to a perfect cup of coffee, and he starts the kettle boiling for Brian, makes the tea with the soy milk and the three sugars, and sets it on the counter to cool while he makes toast with the gross seeded brown bread Brian buys. He'll have to get used to it he guesses. 

When Brian walks in to the kitchen, groggy in a soft flannel shirt and dark jeans, just in his stupid yellow socks, Pat's heart constricts. Brian smiles at him before spotting the mug of tea and making grabby hands at it. Pat hands it to him, laughing, watches as Brian drinks and wakes up, enough to make himself a piece of toast.

They leave the house together, keys jangling in their pockets, and they walk to the train station, sit next to each other talking about the projects they're starting, chatting aimlessly about their coworkers, about what new games they want to play, about what they should do for Gill & Gilbert that week. It's nice, and domestic, and Pat is so in love with Brian and so fucked. 

At the end of the week, Pat and Allegra go out for drinks, and Pat drunkenly tells her how stupid he is. 

"So let me get this right, you knew you had feelings for him, and you decided to buy a house with him anyway, and now you're in love with him. You are the stupidest person alive, Pat!" Allegra hits him gently on the arm, but she buys him another gin and tonic because she loves him really. Pat shoves his face on the table and groans and Allegra, the bastard that she is just cackles at him.

She lets him sleep on her couch when he's too drunk to manage the trains home, brushes his hair when he embarrassingly cries on her at 2 A.M. 

She's his best friend.

Pat wakes up to a piercing headache, and 8 texts from Brian, and 6 missed calls. The last one was 10 minutes ago, and it suddenly hits Pat that he never told Brian that he was staying at Allegra's last night.

"Fuck." Pat breathes out, before calling Brian. Brian picks up on the 3rd ring..

"Pat?" he says, as if he doesn't have caller ID. 

"Hey Brian, I'm so sorry I didn't call, I got kind of drunk and ended up staying at Allegra's, I should've told you."

"I figured, I just, worried, y'know. Plus, this house is kind of creepy all alone you know." Brian laughs but he sounds out of breath, and Pat wonders if he slept enough.

"Hey, I'll just say goodbye to Legs, and then I'll head home. See you in a few, yeah?" Pat says.

"Sounds good Pat. I'll see you then." Brian hangs up, leaving Pat with his phone against his ear. He brushes his hand through his hair, and goes to make coffee for Allegra.

Allegra, when she gets up, drinks her coffee, laughs at Pat's hangover, and kicks him out.

"Go see your husband, I had like 3 texts from him asking about you this morning." she says, gesturing to the door.

"The fact that he is not my husband is the problem, Allegra" Pat says grumpily, but leaves anyway. He's glad he keeps a toothbrush in Allegra's flat, because his mouth tasted gross when he woke up. 

Pat listens to the playlists Brian has on Spotify on the way home, thinks about their home, and how happy he is to live there, thinks about how luck he is to have Brian, in any capacity, just as a part of his life.

Pat is so lucky.

It's a shock when Pat unlocks the door to their house to find Brian sniffling on the couch. 

"Pat?" Brian says, turning around and looking at him from the couch. Pat walks over to him and sits next to him, puts his arm around his shoulder, pulls Brian close to him.

"Hey bud, what's wrong?" 

"I thought I could do this" Brian sniffles. "But I can't, I can't live here."

"What?"

"I just. I can't keep pretending that I'm not in love with you. I can't play house with you, and pretend that when you make me tea it's because you love me, I shouldn't have moved in with you. I'm so sorry, Pat, this isn't fair to you at all." Brian rambles, seemingly incapable of stopping himself. "I'm so sorry, I can't stop talking, please stop me, anytime now."

"You love me?" Pat says, brain stuck on it, three words stuck on loop.

"Yeah" Brian says, miserable. "I'm sorry. It wasn't fair of me to move in with you without saying."

Pat cups Brian's face at this, and gently, gently, moves in to kiss him, more grateful than ever that he brushed his teeth before leaving Allegra's. Brian tastes like tea, and sugar, and while he takes a second to react, when he does, he whimpers into Pat's mouth, and half pushes himself onto Pat's lap, before running his hands through Pat's hair.

They break apart and Pat rests his forehead against Brian's, smiling at him stupidly.

"I'm in love with you too." he says. "I wanted to keep you in my life even if you didn't love me too, and so I bought a house with you. I should've told you" Brian laughs.

"We are so fucking stupid. Normally a house comes after a first date, Pat. You never needed a house to keep me." Brian laughs even more, and he covers Pat's hand with his. 

"Well, I know that now, don't I?" Pat says.

"Yeah, Pat." Brian says, moving in to kiss him again. They don't talk for a while after that.

And one morning, years later, Pat wakes up with his face mashed in Brian's shoulder, and once more uncovered by duvet. Brian is snoring softly, the way he only does when he's truly sleeping deeply, sleeping well, and Pat smiles at him, and decides to make pancakes.

Their daughter likes pancakes after all, and well, Pat loves his family. Pat is so lucky.


End file.
